Interrelationship between the facial expression and familiarity. Analysis using spatial filtering and inverted presentation

Abstract

We investigated interrelationship between the facial expression and familiarity using spatial filtering and inverted presentation. The stimuli were facial images (smiling and neutral faces) band-pass filtered in the spatial domain. If the filtering is carried out at low spatial frequencies, the images convey more global features than the local ones, whereas the local features are emphasized in the images filtered at high frequencies. The task of subjects was to judge the expression (Experiment 1) or familiarity (Experiment 2) of such images, which were presented in the upright or inverted orientation. The following results were obtained. 1) Spatial frequency components in the middle range (12.4 and 24.8 cycles/face-width) were important in recognizing both expression and familiarity, 2) there was close relationship between the facial expression and familiarity, and 3) smiling faces were harder to recognize when they are shown in the inverted orientation. These results suggest that there are the common and different recognition processes between facial expression and familiarity. © 1995, The Japanese Psychological Association. All rights reserved.